KARACHI:
There was a time when monsoon was predictable. It arrived by late June, rained steadily for three months and left before the winters arrived. Workers and labourers could plan their activities around it. Now that predictability is gone, and what has replaced it is a season that can drown an entire city.
Ocean conditions in the Pacific have shifted towards an emerging El Niño, and forecasters across the region are calling for a drier-than-usual monsoon with hotter temperatures. That sounds like good news. It isn’t. A drier season on average says nothing about the individual storms within it, and it is those short, sudden bursts that decide whether a city floods. Karachi is a clear example of this. Its stormwater drains were built decades ago for a much smaller and drier city. Many are now clogged with waste and garbage. So, even a modest spell of rain is enough to submerge the entire city in an instant. Every year, just before the monsoon strikes, the city administration announces that drains have been cleared and machinery is ready. Every year, the first heavy downpour proves this wrong. El Niño has exposed this fragility. Karachi’s infrastructure was built for a monsoon that behaved differently. It has not caught up.
Pakistan cannot control weather patterns in the Pacific. But it can ensure that drains are actually cleared before the season starts, so that “preparedness” reflects real work rather than an annual press statement. If a stronger El Niño develops in the coming years, as some forecasters warn is possible, the cost of ignoring it will great and the country could suffer a tremendous economic and social cost.
Shanzay Javed
Karachi
